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3/19/12

Ride In 3/19: St. Joseph's Day tends to have less green beer

[Insert paean to wonderful weather]
[Insert exhortation to those of you who enjoy nice weather to commute by bicycle, so as to get to spend more time outside in nice weather]
[Insert apology for using brackets in a way that is neither appropriate, descriptive, evocative or appropriately, descriptively evocative.]
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Some fast commuters out there this morning. A guy on a Salsa zipped by me around the Capitol and prior to that I was passed by a woman with a green windbreaker who seems to be riding rather intently. I first saw her at Lincoln Park, and she got ahead of my on East Capitol, but we came back together at the start of Pennsylvania. Salsa guy eluded us for a while, but the stop light at 13th stopped him first and then stopped us. Every so often, I'll ride as fast as the person in front of me, even if it's faster than I would ride otherwise, just for something to do. Though, I'm not really sure that riding too fast along Penn is such a good idea, considering the willingness with which people will walk into the middle of the bike lanes without looking for bicyclists. Here's my controversial idea about jaywalking: I don't really too much of a problem with it in and of itself. Like, I'm not a "law and order" person (did you just hear this too?) and I don't find jaywalking, as a crime, to be especially irksome. I sort of feel its incumbent upon the operator of a vehicle, car or bicycle or pogo stick, to maintain control of that vehicle and not hit people, no matter what they do. Can it be really annoying when someone walks out in your way? Sure. Will it slow you down? Almost invariably? Are these rhetorical questions? I don't technically know. Sometimes people make dumb choices and do dumb stuff like walk out from curbs without looking (or looking through you), but I'm not really sure what I can do about that. Not crash into them, I guess. Anyway, I'd rather have a city where people jaywalk than one where they don't walk at all. And yes, there are like a million shades of gray on this issue and it's not so simple as jaywalking: always good or always bad? (that'd be a totally different survey and it took me a surprisingly long time to make the last one.)
At 15th, I saw Kyle and I saw a lot of other bicyclists. Some rode CaBis, others were fully kitted out on road bikes. There is a surprising variety in the attire and disposition of the bicycle commuter. Maybe it's not surprising, but just noticeable. I'd suspect that much of differentiation is determined by distance, with those traveling from farther more likely to dress bikerly and those taking shorter trips more inclined to wear normal people clothes. Maybe people are changing clothes to ride two miles, but I doubt it. The extent to which bikerly attire is wholly necessary isn't really for me to judge. As always, wear what you want.
I had the strange experience of being followed while riding north up 15th, something that has happened to me maybe only a few times before. I also had the equally strange experience of passing a bicyclist riding in the same direction. That both of these occurred on the same day means that either I've really lowered the bar for describing things as strange experience or that the number of bicyclists in town is increasing to the point where "reverse commutes" by bike are becoming more common.
For the second time in the past week, I've seen a fixie on the front of a bus that was heading uphill. Bus fare is a kind of "hill tax" that some riders are willing to pay for choosing an impractical bike. For those of you on singlespeeds who would never deign to put your bike on the front of a bus, I salute you.
Didn't get shoaled today. So, that's something. Maybe I looked extra fast or something. I didn't feel extra fast and I'm pretty sure I didn't resemble fast in any way, but I felt pretty good on the bike this morning and much better than I would've expected considering that we had friends over for an evening of Taco Bell and wine pairing. (This is an actual thing we did. Conclusion: wines do not have much impact on the taste and savoriness of Doritos Locos.) It should also be a nice ride home, albeit later in the evening.